Why don't they rub it in a little bit more.

not to bring us down further, but the article says nothing about 'important'.

How dare you all think about money! Shame on ya'll.

nowhere to go but up from here

not per... yeah, the "important" part ...where the fuck did I see that?

sorry, i'll cease to say that this is an "important" job. just wishful thinking i guess.

I'm in it for the sex appeal.

i really was under the impression that the previous page name on CNN (at the top of the browser window) had "important" in it...maybe they changed it...or maybe I was just mixing it up with this title. they say the web makes you stupider...

i love it when we undercut the other architects in town, just so we get the job. we are only hurting ourselves.

how bout we make it harder and harder and harder to get licensed so that our salaries will rise... just like doctors!

arzo- when I was looking for a tattoo artist to work on me, I was told buy several people, "don't shop by price. If you're unhappy with the result, you'll think you paid too much, but if you're happy with the work, then that's priceless." I think the same thing could/should be said of architecture. Clients who shop by price can't really complain when they get what they paid for.

"...only a couple of years for an MBA and then come out making a six-figure income..."
there are days that sounds pretty appealing, even though i would probably end up hating myself for it.

here here!! viva la revolution!

I think the problem lies in the training of architects - the mind set isnt taught for success, just certain failure. Being on both sides of the fence here I see all the holes in my education and traing. That said I think you can be a fiscalaly responsible design orientated, technical architect. If we were that and able to lead our clients into the construction battlefield we would earn more.

Construction Administration came from somewhere - not just bubbling changes brought on by RFI's and logging them into a book.

Is it too much to ask that the A.I.A. take a more progressive approach to promote the significance of aesthetic within the built environment?

hate to beat a dead horse but the AIA is made up of us. you want a more progressive approach, get involved with the AIA and make it happen.

outlaw undergraduate architecture degrees, professional or not..

people would have to study other disciplines (how about a few business courses?) before taking on the 3 year MARCH degrees. this will make it harder to become an architect, thereby weeding out a hell of a lot of clowns who are higly proficient in computer graphics, but can't even tie their own shoes.

in the end, the supply will decrease and those left standing will be well compensated... and this fucking silly never-ending discussion of how insignificant our salaries are will be over and done with for good.

i don't know the answer, but moda that's not it.

although I WAS incredibly slow to learn to tie my shoes... (I still use the bunny ears method exclusively, absolutely can't do it any other way)

Shalak, nice post, and I appreciate you continuing to question our profession's situation. I'm just too worn out right now from being a working architect to take on the problems of being a working architect. Maybe I'll have more enthusiasm for this discussion tomorrow.

And I'm sad I mised that discussion on Texas that you linked to - I was on vacation that week but dammit does that make me mad!

i agree completely that there is a serious problem with the training of architects.

at my school (IIT in chicago) they are taking on more and more students (probably to make more tuition money) and project quality on average is going down... granted, there are several students who have the potential to do incredible things, and we have many talented profs, there are still large numbers of students graduating on c's and b's and putting in too little time to really pick up anything at all.

but i also agree that it is largely architects fault taht architecture is not more important... people are willing to shell out for design in numerous other fields... we need to look at why people will pay for ipods, designer furniture and clothing.

we need people like Brad Pitt telling the general public to spend $$$ on architecture.

Shalak – As I understand where you and Steven are coming from, I am thinking about what you said re: “needing some sort of architectural evangelism to take root.”. this would require a large scale, organized effort and to me, it seems that the AIA would be a established foundation to build on. I also understand the role each one of us would need play to perpetuate such a movement. I just think that an association that represents our profession could be more than a resource for production. Please excuse my naivety, but I am early in my profession and would like to take a proactive track.

mdler - Kinda like a ONE campaign for architects. :D Please, won't somebody please think of the poor starving, socially repressed architects?


We need wristbands.

shalak and evil are right on in my opinion. but the disconnect between theory(school) and practice(workday grind) isnt limited to architecture. i work in an office with several structural engineers and they have exactly the same dilemma. i dont know what the answer is. i dont know really how much we're underpaid or how much other professions are overpaid. all the architects i've worked seemed to have plenty of coin. they also worked ungodly hours and had the stress of running a company and meeting payroll etc. all i;ve really discovered so far, is that one must be aggressive and ambitious and unrelenting in getting what you want out of this profession. this goes for those who wanna be rem as well as for those who wanna be s.o.m. and if you are not aggressive, ambitious and unrelenting this profession will grind you right down. bartender!!

hey moda, do you know what the f you are talking about??? I believe incompetent architects will remain incompetent before or after grad school. that does not make any difference at all.

architecture should return to a true intern/apprenticeship. similar to the way craftsman's guilds were structured for hundreds of years. mr and mrs di bondone just take little giotto down to the neighborhood artist and apprentice him. he'll learn it all right from the get go. he may even be great.

Right on, vado. And not just in this profession, but in all of life.

architecturegeek, what will our wristbands look like?

Let's have a competition.



Whoops, that didn't work too well last time.....

That's assuming every budding architect gets a good mentor/master.

i have an excellent mentor

Hmm, what's the difference between a mentor and a master?

I'm not sure. I was thinking master/apprentice. But it could also be master/disciple. It gets into a lot of semantics, which aren't entirely inappropriate to the conversation (master/slave).

And a mentor isn't necessarily a master I suppose.

Another thing to throw out there.

How well are architecture colleges teaching Contract Negotiation?

I don't even remember a mention of it in my schooling.

WonderK - well it's architecture, so you can be assured they'll be some sort plain black deal. Heaven forbid we wear color. LOL

We need these, the Pwned have them so why can't we?

why don't architects get in the market of actually MAKING THINGS instead of dreaming them up? (most often expensively, awkwardly, and undercommunicated.)

the AIA used to regulate fees architects had to charge for services. things sure have changed...

i'm in it for the chicks though.

I know we all think that the work we do is incredibly important to the culture at large, and I definitely think that it is. But to try to understand why we often appear to others to be bitching, try to see it from the point of view of the others listed in this article.

School psychologist: talk about a thankless job! They probably are soundly despised by every one of their "clients", yet they feel they have it in their grasp to totally alter the course of a young person's life. But they don't get paid squat (same goes for public school teachers, if you ask me).

Or research assistants - they walk trhough their lives thinking they are on the cusp of making a discovery that could cure cancer or supply free clean electricity to the world, yet no one respects them and probably they spend their days in a miserable cramped working environment - and get paid squat.

I'm not being as clear as I'd like, because it's late, but when I try to imagine how we cold improve our status in the eyes of the public - make people see the value that we bring to their built environment - I try to imagine what those people think is important in the world as compared to what I think is important. I view the entire world as a series of built objects that reflect culture. A research assistant sees the world as made up of proofs and anomalies, a doctor sees humankind as patients.

Word silverlake.

i'm in it because the emotional abuse i received as a child, wasn't enough to beat the stupid out of me.

I wanted to add,
that as this ignorance of society to the quality of built environment is the same in all countries, it must be immanent to the profession itself.

And to all the posts stating the poor practical education of architects, that has nothing to do with the reputation or the willingnes of people to pay for architecture. It's THEY JUST DON'T CARE.
A hut that keeps them warm and dry is all they expect, something you don't need an architect for.
What disturbs me is that this ignorance changes as soon as "lifestyle" products are concerned. A car is NOT simply needed for transportation, but design and status become important. Similar with fashion.
But just look at your favourite sit-com and look at how people portrayed there are living, even if they drive a 911-carerra and wear the latest fashion, neo-baroque kitsch is the best you get.

So I still have no idea what the solution is, and I am sure smarter people than me have thought a lot about it.

But if it's about education, it's the need of educating society about the cultural value of a 'designed' built environment.

It's really not about not caring..

To paraphrase what someone said above, "people spend money on ipods..why not architecture?"

Well that's easy. Architecture is damn expensive. You you have be pretty wealthy in order to spend money on architecture. Here's the hierarchy..

ipod > BMW/House > Interior Design > Architecture

Not many people make it to "architecture" because they just can't afford it. On top of all this, there are other things that are arguably "more" important/feasible than architecture...private schools, family vacations etc.

It's really not that people don't care, it's mainly cause they cannot afford it. Architecture is an EXTREME luxury.

I'm in it for the hot dogs.

in response to urbanisto and nappy-

i think people do care. but what they care about, similar to ipods and porsches, is what they are fed by the media. we see all the great stuff we can buy in magazines and on tv. seeing these things creates DESIRE. how often is a good built environment the subject of an article in consumer digest, people, oprah, popular mechanics, instyle, or ladies home journal? while you'll see ads for hummers and lexus-es (lexi?), bose and viking, you'll probably also see a lot of frilly curtains, hepplewhite chairs, and color-match condensing units. home environment design, much less public environment design, doesn't enter into the picture at all.

what we need is a media blitz. while i was happy that dwell entered into the design tv fray with their show on fine living, the actual production has been underwhelming. its very subdued and polite - no ty pennington with a bullhorn and no brash 'experts' critiquing residents' tastes in a before/after format.

so what are people left with? they're stuck with a mental inventory of all of the things they want IN their environment. they buy any old builder special and populate it with really great (and possibly well-designed) stuff. but, since it doesn't hold together, having not been designed with any sort of intention (beyond the builders' lowest common denominator budget decisions), they then feel compelled to 'pull the room together' with curtains, throw pillows, crown moulding, etc. builders have gotten more savvy about this: they now sell 'design'/'architectural' touches in the form of tray ceilings and other meaningless tricks which are really just things added to the inventory - except they're attached.

oh, and i disagree that architecture is a luxury - extreme or otherwise. it just doesn't have to be that way.

thanks Steven Ward
exactly what I meant, only more to the point

Well stated Steven. Almost nowhere in contemporary media do we see well-designed space - especially public space - having a positive impact on people's lives.

I'll never forget the quote from a scientist who worked in the Salk Institute, He said very simply that he enjoyed going to work every day more because of the environment he was in: "This building lifts you." he said.

We need a media blitz that shows how much fun people can have in their spaces, as opposed to the ipod commercials for example that show people having a good time in a virtual sound space between their eardrums.

While what Steven and liberty bell said are doubtlessly valid, we have not yet discussed or cast in stone what we mean by "well designed space" or "good built environment". How do we measure this 'things' we are suggesting that the media will take upon? If we as designers are unable to quantify or qualify (the latter tends to be very subjective...), then I cannot expect the media people to do it. Porsches have a hosts of test drivers and magazines to adore them and Ipods legions of unshaped teenage minds (and mine as well) to give it their verdicts but good living? At this point, kitsch adorned in the form of Home Improvement TV.

I tend to agree with one of the participants that architecture is really an item of extreme luxury. Think about the amount of time and resources spent on a single prototype that will most likely not be replicated in its entirety after one operation. I am sure they spent much more on 911s and Ipods but they sell them over again and move on to innovate as soon as one of them hits the profit spot. How long does it take to get OMA library in Seattle from start to finish? Funding, construction, design, and more negotiations. All this eats into what we make. What started as a very big sum gets progressively smaller when taking into considerations all the things that the architect has to look at.

Personally, I am not truly convinced that a media blitz is going to help much. If it has helped, then Bilbao would have done so. But all these have accomplished was apothesis for Gehry and more obscurity for the daily practising architects. IF all we think about is a media boost, then we have not departed from the celebrity state of mind. Just another name for an old syndrome.

I'm naive here and this might be just a bit of ideological dreaming, but I think the reason we're underpaid and all is because there are too many architects out there willing to sell out and build paper houses and strip malls. We're not fucking developers, we're architects (or students, in my case). We're supposed to be improving the built environment, not just adding to it. Forget aesthetics even, there are architects out there adding to the sprawling wasteland of cookie-cutter towns that are taking over our country. It's diminishing our quality of life as a society and it's ruining our environment. There are too many architects out there who will pander to the client and build this crap, but we're supposed to be well-educated, intellectual people who will improve the way all of us live in the most fundamental way: by shaping the world around us. We're not supposed to be the whores that so many of us are. I understand that you have to accomodate the client's needs and wishes, but they're not the ones who studied design and urbanism and all that for years. The problem is not enough of us will stick up and say no, so there is always someone undercutting us. So we end up with lower salaries and shittier buildings.

"I don't intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in
order to build"

also, Moda, why should those of us who know we want to study architecture when we're 18 have to sit through four years studying something we aren't passionate about? That's the real problem.. a chronic lack of passion.

I agree.. VIVA LA REVOLUTION! Archivangelism!

Frank, this argument is not naive or anything: it is just enculturated for us to believe that we are all educated and rarified to improve the environment and so forth.

It is my speculation that if all the architects (including those making millions a year) simply stick up and said no, then we just lose our last foothold in the construction industry since we account for less than 10% of the stuff built out there (USA stats). I am sure in a global economy like this, it is very easy to hire other architects with american dollars than paying homage to the striking american architects? As thinking people, I am sure architects who have more or less contributed to the current status quo understood this fact. This is a forced move.

Personally, I think that the education system has really screwed us into a dreamy state now confronted by brutal reality. It will be alot better if the average practitioner is invited to teach in universities to balance the celebrity paradigm practiced now. Will that ever happen?

FLMike: Forget aesthetics even, there are architects out there adding to the sprawling wasteland of cookie-cutter towns that are taking over our country. It's diminishing our quality of life as a society and it's ruining our environment.

This is the crux of the matter. There was a tiny blip in the media a year or two ago about how our non-walking, suburban sprawl environment has contributed immensely to the "obesity epidemic". And I can't believe that most people, when driving through endless parking lot mazes and stuck in mall traffic, don't look around them and think "Jeepers, this is ugly".

The question is, how do we convince people that there is another way to live? That's an enormous and long-ranging task, and the new urbanists are partly succeeding, if only to bring it into the conciousness of some very wealthy and educated people, at least.

When I was in college, mid-80s, there was actually a group calling themselves "architecture jihad" who would go around plastering posters on construction sites that said "THIS IS UGLY" and such...wonder what ever happened to them?